Tag: beer review

Kensington Brewing Company’s Tilt: So how’s the beer?

Posted on by Ben
The picture is tilted. Get it?
The picture is tilted. Get it?

First, it should be noted that when I heard the Kensington Brewing Company was going to be doing a hoppy wheat beer, it wasn’t a tough sell for me. It’s a style I’ve become just short of obsessed with this summer so, when I received a press release announcing the beer, a 4.4% hoppy wheat beer one-off, I’m not even sure I finished reading the email before I responded with something akin to “Me want.”

Luckily for me, the folks at KBCo were happy to oblige and a short while later a friendly gent on a scooter came to greet me with a sample ahead of the beer’s slated Toronto Beer Week release at Toronto bars 3030, Get Well, and “other participating pinball bars in Toronto.” Continue reading “Kensington Brewing Company’s Tilt: So how’s the beer?” →

A quick review: Hop City Big Mouth Pale Ale

Posted on by Ben

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You might have had this beer in its previous incarnation when it was “Happy Hour Pale Ale,” but about three months ago it got rebranded as Big Mouth Pale Ale. I never bothered to try it as Happy Hour and I just happened to pick one up at the LCBO last week.

In short, this beer rates a “meh.”

When I poured it, I noted that it had nice carbonation and a decent foamy head, and I also noted with some excitement that there was a notable citrusy hop aroma owing to the inclusion of cascade hops and UK Kent Golding hops. Continue reading “A quick review: Hop City Big Mouth Pale Ale” →

Left Field Brewery: So how’s the beer?

Posted on by Ben

LFB

Yesterday on blogTO I wrote about the city’s newest craft brewery, Left Field Brewery. The piece was mainly an interview with the company’s founders, Mark and his wife Mandie. It originally included some supplemental tasting notes on the sample beer they were nice enough to bring me but, due to the length of the piece, that stuff got cut.

I don’t have a ton to say that wasn’t covered over on blogTO, but their beer was tasty and some of the more negative comments on blogTO (shocking!) were along the lines of “Well what does their beer taste like?” so I thought it was worth a post here, too.

In short: It’s good. Continue reading “Left Field Brewery: So how’s the beer?” →

Alexander Keith’s Hop Series Ales

Posted on by Ben

photo 1

For someone who loves hops, Alexander Ketih’s, with its proud pronouncement that it is an “IPA,” is at best misleading and at worst, irritating.

Like most lovers of hoppy beer, I find the moniker “IPA” here vaguely annoying and I’ve personally witnessed it serve as a point of confusion to fans of actual IPAs who’ve never heard of Keith’s; often leading to potentially dangerous consequences.  To illustrate my point, here is a  dramatic representation of actual exchanges I have witnessed in bars:

INT. BAR – NIGHT
An American walks into a quiet CANADIAN bar and takes off his oversized cowboy hat as he approaches the taps. Continue reading “Alexander Keith’s Hop Series Ales” →

You Should Already Be Drinking: Railway City Brewing Company’s Beers

Posted on by Ben

Unless you live in a cave somewhere, you’ve probably already tried Railway City Brewing’s Dead Elephant IPA. It’s a perfectly solid little IPA that, for my money, ranks up there with Great Lakes Brewing’s Crazy Canuck among the best of the easier to drink Ontario IPAs. That is, for me, Muskoka’s Mad Tom IPA currently rules supreme when it comes to my go-to IPA, but when I’m looking to pick up a slightly easier to drink, hoppy Ontario beer, it’s a virtual toss up between a few cans of Crazy Canuck and Dead Elephant.

Which is to say: I dig their style.

Sadly, unless you live around St. Thomas, you likely haven’t been introduced to too much else that Railway City has to offer which, as it turns out, is a real shame. Continue reading “You Should Already Be Drinking: Railway City Brewing Company’s Beers” →

Drinking Ontario – The Rifleman’s Ration

Posted on by Ben

For the past week or so, I’ve been at a cottage which is situated virtually on the beach at Lake Huron and which, for whatever reason, has virtually no cell phone reception, and no trace of anything like an “internet service provider.” Accordingly, as you might imagine, I’ve had very few decisions to make every day aside from how early I should crack my first beer and when I need to fire up the barbecue for lunch. I’ve also had ample time under the influence to create stupid word combinations–or stuwocombos–in an effort to save time.

It’s possible I got too much sun.

Anyway, in order to prepare for my vacation, I first took a trip to the Summerhill LCBO, aka my happy place. As a sort of experiment and a means by which to drunkenly preach my own fiercely local brand of craft beer evangelism when people joined my wife and I at the cottage, I made it my mission to bring up almost exclusively Ontario-made beers. Continue reading “Drinking Ontario – The Rifleman’s Ration” →